Russian swimmer Anastasia Chaun competing in the 2010 LEN Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary
population to embrace change, lifestyle programmes are also in place. Most no- tably, in the realm of physical culture and sport, is the Federal Programme for the Development of Physical Education and Sport in Russia 2006-15. While Russia has, to some extent, been
affected by the World economic crisis, sports programmes like this have been largely shielded from its negative impact and national expenditure on such has been mostly maintained. At the 2010 International Sport Fo-
rum – Russia is a Power in Sport, held to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Moscow Olympics, the mayor of Moscow revealed that the number of sports facilities in Moscow had almost doubled between the years 2000 and 2010. The original 5,806 sports facilities had increased to 9,375, within which the number of swimming pools had grown 4.5 times with a doubling of the number of sports halls and ice rinks. The continued support of Russia’s lead-
ers for the programme was made very clear in January 2011, when Putin an- nounced that the year was designated ‘Year of Sports’ and that Russia would spend some 90 billion rubles (£1.8bn) on the development of sport over the next three years. The rationale of the programme was
again underlined when Putin said: “Cur- rently some 25 million people regularly visit gyms and stadiums in our country. In line with our plans, this number must exceed 42 million by 2015”.
Issue 1 2012 © cybertrek 2012 As a frequent visitor to Russia, I’ve had
the opportunity to meet with many of those charged with executing this strategy and to witness conditions on the ground in many regions. It’s clear that things are happening and the programmes are being led by very able and committed in- dividuals – such as Dmitry Chernyshenko, CEO of Sochi 2014 and his counterpart Alexey Sorokin at Russia 2018. This is a very ambitious plan, it’s scale
is huge and like any mega- programme so are the challenges. The implementation of such a pro-
FIFA president Sepp Blatter announces Russia as host of the FIFA 2018 World Cup
His long-term ambition is to reach lev-
els already achieved by many European countries where, he said, some 70 per- cent of the population is regularly engaged in sporting activity”. It’s worth noting however, that accord-
ing to the World Economic Forum (WEF), 42 million represents about 30 per cent of the population so there remains much to be done to achieve the 70 per cent longer-term target.
FUTURE CHALLENGES It’s clear that Russia’s golden decade of sport is the product of a careful and de- liberately developed strategy.
gramme requires a thorough masterplan and a single body delivery organisation to develop it then continue as its guard- ian. However, delivery responsibilities are devolved to many separate authorities and entities at state, regional and local levels. So the burden placed on organisa- tion and communication is substantial. The WEF report highlights that
although Russia is a strong and well-ad- vanced economy in transition between WEF’s levels 2 and 3 efficiency driven and innovation driven economies, certain pil- lars, such as the development of the goods and financial markets, institutions and business sophistication lags behind the av- erage levels achieved in level 2 economies. I can see how these issues are preoc-
cupying people involved in the project as they strive to work out what is required of them and how it all fits together. l
Jon Coxeter-Smith is a director of Sagacity MCS ,
www.sagacitymcs.com
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